Draconian Laws

India is, in many senses, a typical example of a modern nation-state. It contains within itself most of that which commends a State to the universal body politic. It has managed to stay within the definition of ‘democratic’ – the brief blip that was the Emergency notwithstanding. It has an elaborate, written constitution clearly delineating the three pillars of the modern nation-state and demarcating their respective roles. It guarantees the rights of its citizens in virtually identical terms as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the right to life, the right to freedom of speech, the right to equality and the equal protection of the law, etc. In fact, the Indian constitution incorporates, as a Fundamental Right, the right to directly move the Supreme Court in case the State violates any of the guaranteed, Fundamental Rights.
On paper, India also has a fairly elaborate and developed system of justice. The best and the most liberal strands of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence have been interwoven into the foundation of the system. There is a clearly defined hierarchy of courts with the Supreme Court at the top. The powers vested in the Supreme Court: to do justice, to protect the Fundamental Rights of people
in general and citizens in particular, are truly sweeping. The flanks, so to speak, are amply covered by the High Courts, which have even more sweeping powers in many respects.

At first , it seems inevitable that backed by such might, the ‘Rule of Law’ cannot but prevail. However, for the vast majority of Indians repression is the only truth. Repression is not just a matter of custodial torture and extrajudicial murder. Mis-governance or mal-governance is repression too. While some countries have developed a ‘cradle to grave’ system of welfare, we in India are confronted with a State apparatus that has perfected a ‘cradle to grave’ system of repression and oppression.

Look from the eyes of the Dalits, the Tribals, the abjectly poor, the abysmally helpless and ignorant, the landless, the women,
and all those who are or are forced to become marginal to the mainstream. They easily comprise an overwhelming majority. Their lives are an endless saga of misery and oppression without redemption. For most, if not all, the system does not even hold out a possibility of succour or relief. If asked, most of them will say that the State, in one or more of its myriad avatars, has been
the handmaiden of oppression and repression in their lives, if not the active agent.